iPhone 6 vs. Nexus 6 vs. Galaxy Note 4 In Speed

How does the iPhone 6 stack up against the Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4 in terms of speed? A speed test shows that the iPhone 6 doesn’t even compare to the other two, as the Nexus 6 and the Galaxy Note 4 are almost neck and neck in terms of speed.

Nexus 6 wins

The folks at Phone Buff put together a video of a speed test they ran on the three smartphones. Spotted by GSM Arena, the video shows how fast each phone runs through a series of the same tasks. The Nexus 6 wins the speed test, but only by a hair.

To run the test, they begin by setting a timer on each of the phones. Then they begin opening a variety of apps and games, following the same order on all three of the phones. Next they open the desktop version of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s home page. After each item is opened, they press the home button and then move immediately to the next task.

iPhone 6: How the speed test worked

The testers run through two laps to see how each phone performs. At the end of the first lap, the Galaxy Note 4 is ahead of the iPhone 6 and the Nexus 6. It doesn’t take long for the Nexus 6 to catch up and then pass the Note 4 to finish up and win the race overall by about 2 seconds.

The reason for the win is because the Note 4 has to reload several items that maybe should have stayed up in the RAM. Of course it’s important to point out that the Note 4 is running Android Kitkat, while the Nexus 6 is running Android Lollipop, the newest version of the operating system. Lollipop appears to be better at managing RAM. One commenter at GSM Arena pointed out that Kitkat is optimized to run on devices with smaller amounts of RAM, which is why it tends to be more conservative in the use of RAM.

Each phone also has its own way of managing memory, which also accounts for the difference in speed among the three smartphones.